Overview (Spoilers Below): Bart Allen goes shopping. Zatanna Zatara talks baseball. Plus, the return of Daring Dan Danger!
Our Take: We’ve reached what seems to be the final arc of the season, and based on this week’s episode, it looks like it’s going to be a wild one. Like Zatanna’s arc in the season’s first half, “Rescue and Search” focuses on the magical superhero seeking a detective at the end of last week’s episode. However, instead of getting the world’s greatest detective Batman, Zatanna decided to go with Nightwing, who performs at the circus as his other alias, Daring Dan Danger. The two attempts to solve the disappearance of Kid Flash and the mystery behind the Legion, which lead to them reuniting with the other members. Seeing that we’re in the home stretch, it’s no surprise that this latest arc focuses on getting the band back together for their greatest mission yet. Along with Zatanna and Nightwing, we have Kaldur, Rocket, and Artemis joining in on a rescue mission to save Connor. Unfortunately, Miss Martian is still stuck on the sidelines. This episode is yet another story that features more dialogue-driven moments and only one action sequence which sees the team fighting Klarion. As usual, it’s a pattern that I’ve gotten used to since the beginning of Phantoms, and “Rescue and Search” marks another episode that proves that the show’s character-driven scenes can be as invigorating as the action. In addition to Zatanna’s main plot, the episode features scenes involving Lor-Zod forcing Kid Flash and the Legion to cooperate with him and Ma’alefa’ak. It even took the opportunity to show what happened before they departed in last week’s episode. Another subplot involves Connor explaining to Dru-Zod about his existence and Kal-El’s survival. This subplot didn’t hesitate to remind me how much I missed in the series’s previous seasons, mainly the part when Superboy was responsible for killing Kal-El long ago, resulting in another Superman protecting Earth. Despite that, it offered enough details for me to get caught up on the show’s events without rewatching the previous episodes. Overall, “Rescue and Search” delivers a suitable beginning to the team’s rescue mission to save Connor from the Phantom Zone. It’s also another episode that provides a brief dedication to one of the show’s late actors. This time, it’s Ed Asner, who voiced Kent Nelson (Doctor Fate) in the first season and passed away last year. I always enjoyed it when this season does stuff like this, and I hope it continues in the future. While the subplot involving Lor-Zod may not be as necessary as Connor’s, the episode does enough to get this heroic search party started.